The Making of Music: Enhancing Clinical Listening Skills with Black Men in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

An AAPCSW-North Carolina Program
[ 2 CE Hours* ]

Date: Saturday, October 24, 2026
Time: 10:00 am - 12:00 pm EST
Fee: $0 - $49.87
Location: Online via ZOOM

Register Online
- Early registration ends Sep. 25 at midnight
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-making-of-music-tickets-1998972935862

* Note: CE credits: 2 hours. Letters of attendance will be provided. Please check with your licensure board for pre-approval if you are not a social worker in North Carolina.

Questions, please contact: nataliepeacockcorral@gmail.com
Natalie Peacock-Corral, MSW, LCSW Co-Chair, AAPCSW NC
Frances Beroset, MSW, LCSWA, Co-Chair, AAPCSW NC

With a special invitation for free admission to Texas AAPCSW members and Texas attendees of our last AAPCSW Austin, TX conference, to honor their valuable participation in our last conference and welcome them to our AAPCSW community!

Program

Presenter: Dr. Huey Hawkins, Ph.D., LCSW, BCD-S
Discussant: Karen Baker, MSW, L.MSW

Dr. Huey Hawkins uses Winnicott’s concept of “Adaptation to Need” to emphasize the importance of listening closely and responding to how clients communicate their emotional experiences. Drawing on long-term work with a Black male patient who frequently brought music into therapy, Hawkins illustrates how music, silence, humor, emotional tone, and recurring themes can communicate feelings that are difficult to express directly. With Black male clients, this approach encourages clinicians to consider how relationships, culture, racism, and expectations of masculinity may shape emotional expression. The approach also has broader clinical relevance because every client develops their own ways of communicating difficult feelings, vulnerability, and what they need from others. By adapting their listening to the person rather than expecting the person to adapt to the therapist, clinicians can deepen understanding, strengthen the therapeutic relationship, and support greater engagement in treatment.

Biographies

Huey Hawkins, PhD, LCSW, is a clinical social worker, psychodynamic psychotherapist, educator, and clinical supervisor with more than two decades of clinical experience. He holds faculty appointments at the Institute for Clinical Social Work (ICSW) in Chicago, the Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas (PCC), and the University of Oklahoma School of Social Work. His clinical and scholarly work explores human development, the therapeutic relationship, and the ways race, culture, masculinity, and early relational experiences shape emotional life, with particular attention to the development and treatment experiences of Black boys and men. Dr. Hawkins has received multiple awards from the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work (AAPCSW) and has presented his clinical and scholarly work to dozens of clinical social work societies, psychoanalytic institutes, and professional organizations across the country. Drawing from psychodynamic theory while making its ideas accessible to clinicians across theoretical orientations, his teaching emphasizes deep clinical listening, curiosity, cultural responsiveness, and adapting treatment to the individual needs of each client. In addition to his academic work, Dr. Hawkins owns and directs group psychotherapy practices in the Midwest and on the West Coast, where his clinical leadership bridges scholarship, teaching, supervision, and community-based practice.

Karen E. Baker, MSW, is a clinical social worker and psychoanalyst in private practice in Ann Arbor, Michigan, specializing in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy with children, adolescents, and adults for over 33 years. She is a Past-President of the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work (AAPCSW), where she currently co-chairs the Child and Adolescent Committee, and serves as a Consulting Editor for Psychoanalytic Social Work. Karen is also a faculty member at the Institute for Clinical Social Work (ICSW) and former Child Development Director of Allen Creek Preschool. Her practice and academic interests focus on child development, trauma, applied psychoanalysis, and parent guidance.